HTC teams up with Robert Downey Jnr to confuse everyone

With the release of the flagship
HTC One M9 imminent, HTC
has brought back former collaborator Robert Downey Jnr. for a new series of
short, somewhat baffling promos.

HTC has released ten 30-second shorts starring Downey, each
of which features ‘genre-bending’ use of color, props and costumes, references
to pop culture icons such as Charlie
Chaplin and Andy Warhol – and little-to-no mention of the One M9 itself.

We get the sense that the promos were artistically driven by
Downey himself, rather than HTC’s long-suffering marketing department. While
HTC and the M9 do get a brief mention at the end of each short, there’s
virtually nothing else that ties the content to the device or the HTC brand.

The films do, however, introduce a new tagline and 'HTC philosophy' for the company and
its One range of devices:
One Life. Make it Count. The first of the 'M9 Project' shorts is below; you can find the rest - and read more on the wacky campaign -
at HTC.

Confused? You're not alone

Downey first teamed up with HTC to champion the Taiwanese
tech company back in 2013, starring in – and reportedly co-creating – the
‘Here’s to Change’ ad campaign, which saw the Oscar-nominated actor sharing screen time
with cats, hipster trolls and humongous tinfoil catamarans.

HTC brought Downey back last year to promote the HTC One M8
in a brief commercial that, unlike the company’s latest effort, actually saw
the celeb spokesperson showing off and talking up the device shortly after its
March release.

While we still think the formerly troubled Downey makes an
ideal partner for HTC in its efforts to turn around the misfortunes of the past
few years, we’d love to see the star spend less time being artsy and more time
actually promoting the company’s products.

We’re still excited to get our hands on the One M9, but a little disappointed that, so far, the company hasn’t made better use of its partnership with Iron Man.

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